Cowley’s concrete mural

Every so often I feel the need to forsake the confines of Oxford’s medieval walls and look elsewhere for adventure. And so it is last week I decide to head east to Cowley, the city’s industrial heartland, alighting from the bus at Templar’s Square on Between Towns Road. I was curious to see a concrete mural created in 1976 to decorate what was then the facade for Sainsbury’s, and part of an exciting new American style shopping mall. That was nearly 50 years ago and now the mural has made it on to the nominations list for Heritage Site status, an award given by Oxford City Council to buildings and structures that are felt to contribute to the character of their neighbourhood. I wanted to see it for myself.

You can’t miss it. The story of Cowley in artfully moulded concrete and coloured tiles takes up an entire length of wall at the north entrance to the shopping centre. The shop front for which it was built may now lie empty. Sainsbury’s was replaced by the wonderful Wilko – £10 would buy you a trolley load of stuff you didn’t know you needed – also now gone. And a chained bench and tiered flower planter is positioned in such a way as to make an unhindered view of the piece in its entirety impossible. But despite all this, protected from the worst of the rain by an overhang from the car park above, the mural still looks remarkably cheery, an extraordinary example of master storytelling and workmanship today attracting the attention of a steady stream of shoppers who glance affectionately its way as they hurry about their business. 

It was created by the husband and wife team Henry and Joyce Collins from the studio of their home in Colchester where they lived all their married lives. A lively, welcoming place by all accounts, filled with the smell of toast, marmite and turpentine. He liked to paint seascapes. She was well known for her pictures of cranes and industrial sites. But it was the concrete murals that they created together, that made them famous. First commissioned to front the Sainsbury’s being built in their home town (still there), and later for stores and public spaces all over the country.  Joyce conducted detailed historical research on the locality of each project commission, which Henry then translated into the design, working in partnership with Hutton Builders in Birch, the leading experts in decorative concrete. Firm believers in art made for public spaces, they were also keen that their work was accessible, sensory, tactile, carving the polystyrene moulds by hand using household tools like potato peelers and nutmeg graters to produce a variety of concrete finishes. Also integrating shiny brightly coloured mosaics for backgrounds and adding gold paint to grab the attention of passers-by.

I can see all of this reflected in the Oxford frieze. The intricate moulding tells a story unique to our city, (a bright yellow sun or wheel seen on all Sainsbury commissions, a basket of food on every one created for BHS the only recurring motif used).  In bold concrete letters we learn Cowley was first named Cufa’s Wood after an early inhabitant, before Oxenforde was even thought about further west. Cows, sheep and hens that look like Victorian biscuit moulds standing proud of the mural tell of a time when the place was agricultural and owned by the Knights Templar. All this area was gifted to them by Queen Mathilda in the 12^th century – hence the name Templar’s Square. Temple Cowley library is built on the Templar’s fishponds. 

But it is industrial Cowley to which Joyce gives the starring role. While Oxford University is certainly present as a skyline of turrets, domes and spires, a mix of mosaic blue water cascades under the arches of Magdalen Bridge taking us to the machinery once made outside of the city and which worked its land.  Ploughs and traction engines, combine harvesters and cranes. And there are the iconic cars of Morris Oxford, the MG, the Mini, the Princess. Their bodies picked out in glorious technicolour. 

There is still some of what the mural depicts left around here. I find the old Dutch gabled gateway to the Oxfordshire Steam Ploughing Company (later John Allen and Sons) tacked on at the back of the John Allen Centre across the road. Founded in 1868 this was where they manufactured steamrollers, cranes, excavators, scythes, mowers, saws and all manner of outdoor machinery to export across the world, the space now filled with retail outlets, Poundland, Lidl, TK Max and the like . Opposite is Beauchamp Lane, flanked on one side by a vast multi storey car park, and the other a tiny, thatched cottage leading up to the old Norman Church of St. James. Once upon a time this stood in the village of Church Cowley, separate from Temple Cowley (the two towns after which the road which linked them is named) and surrounded by fields before both were swallowed up by the city’s suburban sprawl. And while the ownership may not be the same, the car industry at the BMW plant still assembles 1,000 cars a day and  employs over 3,700 people. That little red mini on the mural may well become BMW’s first fully electric car. 

Joyce Collins once said, “We aim to put something together which adds dignity to a building and tells a story.”  I believe this they did with their concrete mural in Cowley, and as I watch the morning shoppers slow their pace to take it all in, I think they do too.

Sainsbury’s motif – there on all their murals countrywide.

This truck would have originally born the Sainsbury’s logo. Wilko has gone too but the branding remains.

Juniper Cottage, once Snowdrop Cottage on Beauchamp Lane.

The Dutch gable of The Oxfordshire Steam Ploughing Company, who would have made many of the machines in the mural – rebuilt and tacked on to the back of the new shopping centre.